Distortion Search, A Web Search Privacy Heuristic

TL;DR

This paper introduces Distortion Search, a user-centric heuristic that obfuscates search queries and user profiles to enhance privacy without relying on third-party tools or search engine cooperation.

Contribution

It proposes a novel method for query obfuscation using keyword permutation and k-anonymity in user navigation, aiming to improve search privacy.

Findings

Empirical evaluation shows effective query obfuscation.

Distorted queries retain relevant search results.

User privacy against profiling is potentially improved.

Abstract

Search engines have vast technical capabilities to retain Internet search logs for each user and thus present major privacy vulnerabilities to both individuals and organizations in revealing user intent. Additionally, many of the web search privacy enhancing tools available today require that the user trusts a third party, which make confidentiality of user intent even more challenging. The user is left at the mercy of the third party without the control over his or her own privacy. In this article, we suggest a user-centric heuristic, Distortion Search, a web search query privacy methodology that works by the formation of obfuscated search queries via the permutation of query keyword categories, and by strategically applying k-anonymised web navigational clicks on URLs and Ads to generate a distorted user profile and thus providing specific user intent and query confidentiality. We provide empirical results via the evaluation of distorted web search queries in terms of retrieved search results and the resulting web ads from search engines. Preliminary experimental results indicate that web search query and specific user intent privacy might be achievable from the user side without the involvement of the search engine or other third parties.